Potatoes are our ingredient of the season. You can find our full archive of potato posts here.
Portions of this post were originally published in 2012 on my old blog, Winter Foliage.
When we lived in PA, we had the good fortune of belonging to a farm-share, or community-supported agriculture (CSA), called Plowshare. The CSA is still alive and well, and if you’re in the State College area, I highly recommend supporting their work. If you want to learn more about farm shares, read this post. And you can find our full archive of farm share posts here.
As members of Plowshare, we received weekly deliveries from the farm, we broke bread at potlucks with fellow members, and we helped harvest sweet potatoes!
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Saturday Sarah and I woke up early to drive out to our CSA farm and help with the sweet potato harvest. It’s not often that we’re up and out early enough to drive through the fog in the valleys or see the dew on the spiderwebs.
At the farm we got to meet Sally and Polly, the horses that pulled the harvester through the field. As they passed, the soil was turned and the sweet potatoes were brought to the surface for us to sort.
The potatoes were sorted into piles of unblemished “firsts” and blemished “seconds”. The seconds were broken, nibbled on by mice, or had gashes from the harvester. Once the seconds are cured {left out in the sun to dry a bit}, they will be as good as the firsts and nothing will go to waste.
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After a couple hours of work, we all sat in the field and ate a few baked sweet potatoes and brought home half a bushel!
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I still look back fondly on this morning. There’s nothing like spending time on a farm, seeing how our food is grown, and getting the chance to participate in the processes. It calms my mind, nourishes my soul, and stays with me long after the event has passed. I still remember school and scout field trips to local farms, and my many you-pick-it trips to apple and berry farms.
If you haven’t had the luxury of a farm visit, why not make it a goal this year? Find a local you-pick farm, join a CSA, or strike up a conversation with the sellers at your local farmer’s market.